More Articles

NEWARK, Ohio —The Medical Center of Newark was the little guy in Licking County, no question. A
mile down the road, Licking Memorial Hospital filled 10 times as many beds last year. It performed
more than three times as many surgeries.

Still, MCN kept plugging along — until it couldn’t anymore.

Licking Memorial announced yesterday that it is buying MCN for an amount it plans to disclose
after the deal is completed, probably this year.

“Steady progress for three years,” said Jim Havens, who co-founded MCN. “And then we started to
face those headwinds.”

Those headwinds — changing health-care laws and other challenges that made it exceedingly
difficult to be the little guy — led the for-profit MCN to start shopping for a bigger partner more
than a year ago, Havens said. After searching both nationally and locally, it finally came to an
agreement with its competition just down Main Street.

“We’re excited about the notion of maintaining a local health-care entity,” said Rob Montagnese,
president and CEO of the nonprofit Licking Memorial Health Systems, which operates the Newark
hospital.

MCN’s roots lie with doctors who left Licking Memorial and complained that the hospital was
trying to control health care in the community. They started the Newark Ambulatory Surgery Center
in 1998, offering outpatient treatment.

In 2008, the center reopened as the Medical Center of Newark after a $20 million expansion that
allowed it to add inpatient services. At the time, MCN said half of Licking County residents were
seeking their inpatient care in other counties.

Although MCN thrived initially — the number of surgeries increased sixfold in eight years — its
small size proved to be a burden.

Chief Financial Officer David Sheppard said the hospital lacked the purchasing power and the
clout with insurance companies that larger players had. Changing federal regulations also clamped
down on doctor-owned hospitals, limiting their ability to expand.

Sheppard is not sure that MCN would have survived alone. “It would have been really tough,” he
said.

It remains to be seen how the deal between the hospitals will play out. MCN will operate through
the end of the year, and Licking Memorial will take over on Jan. 1.

Both sides said that they hope to make the transition as soon as possible, although MCN might
have to close briefly. Montagnese said it probably will be used as an outpatient center.

Montagnese also said that Licking Memorial hopes to find jobs for MCN’s nearly 170 part- and
full-time employees. He met with them yesterday afternoon to explain the transition.

Sheppard said that even though negotiations had occurred in secret, employees didn’t seem too
surprised by the news.

“I think people kind of had a sense that something was going on,” he said. “But it’s a shock to
anyone. Change is difficult.”